Many access control systems utilize a combination of terminals and credentials to provide security for many different physical and logical entities. It is often the case that terminals, such as credential readers, biometric readers, user-input pads, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) locks, and the like, are manufactured and shipped to customers with a generic password and/or Personal Identification Number (PIN) which is used to install the terminal. Upon installation of the terminal at the customer's premises, the customer is usually required to replace the generic password/PIN with a customer-specific password/PIN that will be used for subsequent operation of the terminal.
By allowing the customer to program their own personal password/PIN, the terminal manufacturer is allowed to assign each terminal the same generic password/PIN. This enables the manufacturer to focus its time and money on manufacturing the terminal instead of assigning each terminal a specific key and then securely and individually delivering the specific key to each customer. It also allows the customer to program the terminal with a customer-specific password/PIN that likely makes sense to the customer and is, therefore, easy for the customer to remember.
Unfortunately, there are often times where a customer forgets the customer-specific password/PIN that they have assigned to their terminal. In the past, if a customer forgot their customer-specific password/PIN the customer would have to send the terminal back to the manufacturer to have the password/PIN reset back to the generic password/PIN or the customer would spend a great deal of time, and possibly money, engaging customer support to reset the terminal and the password/PIN.
As can be appreciated, any terminal that is capable of making the password/PIN reset process easier and more customer-friendly would be well received in the current market. In particular, such a terminal would save the customer time and money if they ever needed to reset their customer-specific password/PIN. Indeed, this would be a desirable feature for any terminal or computing system which is manufactured with a generic password/PIN and requires a customer to replace that generic password/PIN with a customer-specific password/PIN.